A Cruel and Unusual Punishment
by TheCatsTales
Summary: Coulson handles the Avengers pretty well, but when he goes on vacation, Fury needs someone to take his place. Luckily for him, there is an agent who needs a lesson on responsibility, and Fury knows just how to give it to him. Will the agent be able to handle the rambunctious family that is the Avengers?


A/N: i've had this idea knocking about in my head for a while now, so i've finally decided to do something with it. Coulson handles the Avengers pretty well, but when he goes on vacation, Fury needs someone to take his place. Luckily for him, there is an agent who needs a lesson on responsibility, and Fury knows just how to give it to him. Will the agent be able to handle the rambunctious family that is the Avengers?

* * *

Agent Woodruff was somewhat bemused as he left Director Fury's office. He had gone in expecting to be chewed out and disciplined. He had been right about the being chewed out part, but rather than disciplining him, the Director had assigned him as the Avengers' handler for the next few weeks, while Agent Coulson was away.

Grinning, he sat in the S.H.I.E.L.D cafeteria with the files he had been given, reading up on each member of the Avengers team. The files weren't very thick, and it didn't take long to get through them all. Fury had clearly decided that just because Woodruff was going to be the Avengers handler, didn't mean his security clearance was going to be any higher than normal. He already knew the majority of the stuff in the files, and, had he ever bothered to look, he could have accessed the rest on any S.H.I.E.L.D database.

"You're still alive then." Woodruff looked up as his friend dropped into the seat next to him. "I thought Fury was going to throw you off the Helicarrier this time."

"So did I," Woodruff replied honestly. "Instead I got a lecture and an assignment to teach me about responsibility." He grinned widely at thought of his assignment. He was going to meet the Avengers!

"Huh. You look pretty happy about the assignment, so I take it you're not training newbies?" His friend raised an eyebrow expectantly.

"Nope. You're never going to believe this. I'm covering for Coulson as the Avengers handler!" he said excitedly, practically bouncing his seat. His friend gaped at him for a moment.

"Bullshit! How would that teach you anything?" he said when he finally managed to pick his jaw up off the floor.

"No idea. Maybe Fury is hoping that some of their responsibility will rub off on me," he snorted. "Like that's going to happen. Still, this is going to be the best assignment ever! I get to hang around the Avengers base, and all I have to do is debrief them and submit their reports. No effort required on my part at all. Sure, I have to deal with problems that they have, but come on, it's the Avengers! They know how to take care of themselves."

The two friends spent the rest of their lunch break talking about Woodruff's assignment. Neither of them noticed the blue eyes watching them from the air vent above.

* * *

"Stark we are not 'testing' whoever stands in for Coulson!" Steve said in exasperation. "Whoever Fury sends will be perfectly capable, I'm sure."

"Aw, come on! Barton thinks it's a good idea," Tony said, folding his arms and pouting childishly.

"Barton thought that introducing Thor to daytime TV," Banner commented dryly, ignoring Tony's glare. Personally, he didn't care who Coulson's temporary replacement was, nor did he have an opinion on Clint and Tony 'testing' them, other than it might be funny. As long as he could access his lab, and his teammates were happy, he didn't much care what went on.

"It'll be fun, guys. It's not like we're going to do anything dangerous," Tony protested. Natasha rolled her eyes. The conversation had been going for last half hour. Any agent that they sent was unlikely to have any authority over her or Barton anyway; their direct superior was Coulson, who's superior was Fury. However, it would be amusing to see how the replacement coped with Stark and Barton's antics. Not that she would ever confess to being amused by something.

"No Tony!"

This was why leaving all the Avengers cooped up in a room together was a bad idea -all the Avengers except Hawkeye, who had disappeared into the vents almost an hour ago, and Thor, who was in Asgard. At least Stark was occupied, coming up with plans on how to terrorise the replacement agent, and trying to persuade the team to join in. A bored Stark caused mayhem.

"We'll only test him a little bit, just to make sure he is capable," Tony said, reverting back to the same argument he had been using at the beginning, not realising that the entire team had been on board with the idea pretty much from the start.

The team didn't really need convincing; they liked Coulson, and hadn't been happy that he was leaving, even if it was only temporary. The only reason they hadn't made more of a protest was because they all agreed that, after everything he had been through, Coulson deserved the break. None of them had been happy to find out that they were getting a babysitter. Steve was just arguing so he could claim that he had been against the idea, and maintain his reputation as the sensible leader of the group, and maybe a tiny little bit because it was fun to mess with Stark sometimes.

They were currently sitting in the Avengers rec. room in the Helicarrier. It wasn't officially theirs, but it was the closest to Tony and Bruce's lab - which was exclusively theirs, even when they weren't there, after Bruce nearly Hulked out when someone messed up the experiment he had left running for four weeks, and various things Tony left behind blew up when people tried to move them - and so the team had started to gather there. Once the team started gathering there, people had started avoiding it.

The team didn't deliberately try to chase people away - Barton's spoon throwing incident didn't count, because Tony and Bruce hadn't known that their newly developed pain killer would cause paranoia, and at least they had managed to confiscate anything sharp and pointy before Barton had retreated to the air vents, where he had proceeded to throw spoons at everyone who entered the room who wasn't a team member. The other agents were either overawed and intimidated by the thought of sharing a room with the superheroes, or they couldn't handle the crazy that followed the team wherever they went. So the room had gradually become theirs.

Right now, they were waiting for Fury to introduce them to their temporary handler. Normally it would be done in one of the debriefing rooms, but Stark got bored, and had hacked S.H.I.E.L.D's system and caused all the computers to start playing the Nyan Cat. He had only agreed to turn it off if Fury would let them go to his lab while they waited.

Just as Stark was about to launch into another round of 'convince the team to mess with the agent', Clint dropped into the room.

"Agent Woodruff. Karl Woodruff," he announced proudly. For all Stark's hacking abilities, he hadn't been able to find out who the babysitting agent would be, because Fury hadn't told anyone. "And Fury wants us to torture him," he continued, with a level of glee that would have disturbed the others, if they hadn't all been slightly insane too.

"He said that?" asked Steve sceptically, while Stark used his phone to hack into S.H.I.E.L.D and find out all he could about Woodruff.

"Well, no. Not in as many words," admitted Barton, "but the guys a kid! And he said something about us teaching him responsibility. How else will we teach him responsibility?"

Steve thought about pointing out that they were probably supposed to lead by example, but didn't bother. He was kidding himself if he thought that was what Fury intended. The Avengers may have more world saving experience than anyone else on the planet, but when it came to everyday life, it was like having a family of three year olds.

"We should go to the zoo!" Barton announced suddenly, from his perch on top of the vending machine. "What?" he said, when the others looked at him like he was crazy. "Last time was great, until the bat enclosure turned out to be full of blood sucking aliens, but I'm sure that issue has been sorted now. Besides, Thor's in Asgard, so we don't have to worry about him stealing penguins. Come on it'll be a great initiation for little Woody. A family trip out." He beamed at them.

Slowly, everyone began to nod. Steve actually quite liked going to the zoo; he enjoyed sketching the animals, and learning about them. Natasha was indifferent; it held no particular appeal to her, but if Clint wanted to go, then she would go. Tony was just looking forward to the trouble he could cause, and Bruce would go along with what everyone else wanted to do.

Before any further plans could be made, the door opened and the Director strode in, with a slightly nervous looking agent behind him.

"Avengers, this is Agent Woodruff. He will be acting as your S.H.I.E.L.D contact until Agent Coulson returns. Woodruff, this Tony Stark, Bruce Banner, Agent Romanoff, and...Barton, get off the vending machine!" Fury said, pointing to each Avenger in turn, and glaring Barton, who jumped off the vending with a huff.

"Um...hi," Woodruff said, swallowing nervously, looking around at the team. Natasha watched him expressionlessly, Steve considered him with a thoughtful expression, and Clint was (unsuccessfully) attempting to climb onto the glass covering the food counter without Fury noticing. Tony was still engrossed in his phone, while Bruce watched what he was doing over his shoulder.

"Woodruff has been given the information we felt he needed to know," Fury continued, once he had managed to make Barton sit on a chair. "If there is-"

"Is this true?" Tony interrupted, looking at Woodruff. "Did you really get 98% in your marksmanship training?"

"Er, yeah," Woodruff said hesitantly, thrown by the sudden question. The rest of the team just looked at Tony curiously, wondering what was coming next. Fury decided to let this play out, rather than shout at Stark like he normally would - the kid may as well find out what he was in for now.

"So is this bit true as well then? You shot yourself in the foot during your first class?" Tony continued with a wicked grin. The agent flushed with embarrassment as Barton threw his head back and laughed, while Bruce chuckled, and Steve looked caught between amusement and sympathy. Romanoff simply raised an eyebrow, and looked as emotionless as ever, but the team knew her well enough to see the amusement in her eyes.

"Stark! Stop hacking our system," Fury shouted, but with less force behind it than usual.

"But you never tell me anything!" Tony said, pretending to pout. Fury sighed.

"Avengers, this is Agent Woodruff. He'll be filling in for Coulson," Fury repeated. "Try not to break him," he added, before he swept out of the room, leaving Woodruff alone with Avengers.

"So Woody, how do you like the zoo?" Clint asked, smirking.


End file.
